Lovely trees

[imomus]

Well, I really have to thank auto_appendix profusely for sending me Peter Neal's Incredible String Band DVD Be Glad For The Song Has No Ending. What can I say? Words like "life-changing" and "determinant" kept floating into my mind as I watched the two films, the 1968 documentary made for BBC arts programme Omnibus but shelved because it was "too advanced", and the whimsical pantomime filmed on Super 8 by the band themselves, The Pirate and the Crystal Ball, described quite accurately as "Wickermanesque".

The "Wickermanesque" atmosphere was enhanced by the fact that I interlaced bits of the DVD with a documentary being broadcast on Arte called The Cherry Blossom Front, a film by Kenichi Watanabe about Japan's sakura-mania, and the folk rituals surrounding the annual appearance of the blossom. The film showed Mount Yoshino, near Nara, exploding with cherry blossom, and showed the monk who tends an 1800 year-old cherry tree updating a website dedicated to it with daily pictures. The monk saw the tree as both sacred and frail, and his respect for it was thoroughly practical: make sure it has the best soil, so that its branches stay healthy. Support the tree, where necessary, with wooden platforms so that it can ramble horizontally despite having been blown around by typhoons for nearly two thousand years.

Back to Be Glad: the Incredibles are walking around Edinburgh, it's 1968, they're talking about God. "Some people feel they're separate from God and inferior. Others feel they share that energy." It's Robin Williamson talking, a faraway look in his eyes, and what he's describing is really the secret of Shinto. God is not elsewhere, not unknowable, but in us and in nature, channellable, tied up with down-to-earth things like trees and stories and weird musical instruments. I think the Shinto priest with his cherry tree would agree: what we call the divine is all tied up with structure, and we participate in it by playing with structures, tampering with structures, creating structures. The arbitrariness and unpredictability of the ISBs' song structure is, in this sense, divine, and perfectly worldly. Like their songs, the band's live performances are casually, divinely divergent: in the film they wear absurd Noah and Dove masks, retell the flood story "through the illusion of long-distance time-colour television", turn a routine gig into a dance performance and a poetry reading. Precious, pretentious, twee, trippy... well, yes, all of the above, if it weren't for the fact that these people really are channelling something divine, as the music (ramshackle, implausible, zany, devotional) confirms. Like blossom shooting from the cells of an ancient tree in spring, these songs have no ending.

Comments

Exactly!

[becki1111.livejournal.com]

"The monk saw the tree as both sacred and frail, and his respect for it was thoroughly practical: make sure it has the best soil, so that its branches stay healthy. Support the tree, where necessary, with wooden platforms so that it can ramble horizontally despite having been blown around by typhoons for nearly two thousand years."

I feel like the element of practicality is so often lost in religious or spiritual discourse, yet it is so vital. It is what leads to structure and our interaction with it....as you suggest.

For spirituality to be truly effective, it must have physical and abstract form in the past, present and future with equal stability. This is why your example of the tree struck me as it did...it is the perfect example of what happens when this is done successfully.

I checked out the links for "Be Glad the Song Has No Ending" and the "The Cherry Blossom Front". When I have money I definitely want to check out the former, and (here comes my question), is the latter ever available for viewing on the Internet? I am not fluent in French, but can generally make out the gist of web-sites and could not find anything leading me to believe it is, but I really want to see this program you mention. Perhaps PBS will eventually pick it up.

Finally, have you read Ancren Riwle (The Nun's Rule)? I picked it up from the library last week (it hadn't been checked out since 1965!). Anyway, it was written by Bishop Poore in the 14th century as a sort of instructional manual for nuns and anchoresses. I originally checked it out for reserach for a novel or novella I hope to begin in the relatively near future, but my guess is that it contains a lot of information or insight that lends itself well to what you wrote today as hermetic writing tends to take into account the divine nature of practical, daily ritual. It will be interesting to see if Bishop Moore goes into that or sticks to rules of chastity and the like. If only I could find texts writeen by actual anchoresses from that time period.

Re: Exactly!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The Cherry Blossom documentary was just shown on Arte TV here in Europe, it's not, as far as I know, available as a DVD. The "Be Glad" film is a DVD and should be available. Never heard of Ancren Riwle, but it sounds fascinating. Good luck with the novel!